1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to workstation clusters or pods that can be easily linked together using minimum floor space while not severely restricting functional worker movement, and also permitting handicapped access.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The concept of having a central core that is used for forming a pod or cluster of workstations is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,625,633, and also the concept of using spaced pods has been advanced by Center Core, Inc., as exemplified by products sold by that company under the trademarks PENTAPOD and FOUR PLUS ONE, workstation areas. However, the cluster or pods that are formed tend to restrict the actual space in which a worker can operate, and can confine the workers. The arrangement also tends to provide unusable work surface area, particularly in the primary work zone.
Many patents have been advanced for various workstations, for classroom and office. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,688,419 and 3,778,911 both issued to Meyer and Woolman, show seating arrangements for six persons with the persons being divided into pairs or sets of two, and with no dividers between adjacent people. This is for paired learning arrangements in schools, but does not utilized isolation dividers between the pairs of persons, nor does it divide up the primary work surface counter.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,418,765 shows a coordinated system for activity isolation, but does not have efficiently arranged pods that can easily be clustered or linked together to minimize wasted space and provide adequate work area for workers. Other patents which show the state-of-the-art include the following:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. Inventor(s) Issue Date ______________________________________ 2,961,280 Jentzen November 22, 1960 3,117,533 Martland January 14, 1964 3,181,920 Burr May 4, 1965 4,224,769 Ball et al. September 30, 1980 4,314,700 Dylag February 9, 1982 ______________________________________